****ing Ryan Whitney...

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Oops, correction, 5 points. Missed that Smid had one. Petry, Whitney, Potter have combined for 0 even strength points and Fistric has as many as the two Schultz's combined.

So now I hate Potter and Whitney more...

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Not sure if possible, but yes.

It's pretty bad when the top 6 is the most talked about/ragged on (not saying they don't deserve to be ragged on - they should be much better), but compared to the rest of the team they're playing like all stars (aside from goalies who have saved our ass).

Man, I have watched every Oiler game this year, save maybe one. I even went to the Minny game last week.

Ryan Smyth and Ben Eager gave the most effort in the game I saw live. Peckham even played pretty well considering how much time he has missed (tubby time). He was physical nearly every shift, something every Oil D except Fistric and Smid play without.

The lack of even strength scoring definitely can at least partially be attributed to the D corps(es!).

I've never liked Tambellini. I felt the same way when Doug Risebrough was brought in - bad karma (ex-Flamer and Tambo an ex-Nuck).

Now that Lindy Ruff is available, I wonder if he'd be a good fit with Edmonton and the youth movement? Sure his message got tuned out, but it took like 10 years (I can't remember how long he was the Sabres coach!).

...and while I'm at it, could we do something about the current owner, cause he drives me batty..."I'm so poor that I want the City/Province to help me build a new downtown arena or I'm going to move the team to Seattle" "My drug stores now only stock generic brands because I'm sinking sooo much money into the Oilers". I hate it when billionaires and their spoiled progeny (who look funny, but will never get picked on because they are going to a snooty private school) cry poor and try (successfully I might add) to get stuff paid for by the taxpayers, cause you know, why would we want to spend money on frivolous stuff like health care, education, etc. when we could spend that money helping a billionaire out of financial hard times. I really feel for the guy and how hard it must be to be paying $4.6M (cap hit I think) to Ryan Whitney, when he was sure it was supposed to be Ray Whitney.

Sorry, kinda went off on a little tangent. I'm good now. Go Oil!

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12 Team "Experts" Roto representing Dobberhockey 2nd
G,A,PPP,+/-,SOG,Hits,Blocks,Wins,GAA,SV% - Keep 4
4C-Kopitar,M.Koivu,Stepan,Matthias,Prospal
4L-Marleau,Steen,M.Foligno,N.Foligno,Morrow,Umberger
4R-Hossa,Hornqvist,Little,Alfredsson,Oshie
6D-Byfuglien,Phaneuf,Doughty,J.Johnson,Burns,Wideman, Kostka,Methot
2G-M.Smith,Backstrom,Reimer

12 Team Salary Cap Roto Dynasty 3rd (G,A,Pts,FPts,DPts,Pim,SOG,H,BS,W+OTL+SO,GAA,SV%)
12F-Ovechkin,Kopitar,P&E Kane,Kessel,Ryan,M&N Foligno,Ennis,Hodgson,Killorn,Horton,Wolski,Morrow ,Bonino
6D-Subban,J.Johnson,Carle,Wizniewski,Franson,Spurgeon ,Kostka,M.Fraser
2G-Rask,Anderson,Emery
Farm-Markstrom,Scrivens,Brunner,Nyquist,G.Bourque,B.Con nolly,T.Barrie,Brennan,Barberio,Orlov

Man, you were at that Minny game too? Brutal game.

I think Krueger has done poorly but don't think Ruff will do any better - history has shown he's not the most young-star friendly.

I honestly don't know that it's the coach. I mean, there's only so much you can do with a roster that is weak as shit up the middle and piss poor on defence. Frankly, I think the staff is doing a hell of a job considering. Now, are they necessarily doing their jobs from a player development standpoint, ie. teaching these young ****s to win faceoffs, well I don't know about that but in terms of strategies they aren't doing a terrible job. Just look at what they've done with the special teams. They've got the 7th best power play and 4th best penalty kill. Clearly there's some coaching taking place here and that's even acknowledging that the biggest reason the PK has been so strong has been the goaltending.

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That's the special team coaches though, not really Krueger...

I don't want to throw him under the bus or anything but...

For starters, he keeps benching Paajarvi. I've been pretty hard on Paajarvi over the years but he's among the top Oilers in shot differential and is #1 in GA/60. It's hard to say that he hasn't been an effective player. He also is among the top in CorsiRel and CorsiQoC. To be fair, he has been playing a good number of shifts with Hemsky/Gagner as of late, and that's definitely a start.

Choosing Potter/Whitney over Fistric, etc.

He's been playing Yakupov with Belanger and Smyth the past few games, not to mention he received 5:24 in EV ice time last game vs CHI. That's just ridiculous. It's a small sample size, but Yakupov has scored 4 points in the 6 games that he's played 15+ minutes... if you expand that to the game he played 14:48, that's 5 points in 7 games. Yakupov played 19+ shifts in 11 games this season and during those games he recorded 8 points; in the 7 games he played less than 19 shifts he had 3 points.

So 15+ minutes = 0.67 ppg
19+ shifts = 0.73 ppg
<15 minutes = 0.58 ppg
<19 shifts = 0.43 ppg

Yea, he's pretty terrible defensively but I'd still like to see him get some icetime over the likes of Smyth, etc.

It could be complete fluke based on the small sample size but the Oilers have 7 points out of a possible 12 (0.583) in games when Yakupov has scored a goal. In games he hasn't scored, the Oilers have managed 11 points out of a possible 24 (0.458).

I'd love to see the Oilers shake the lines up too.

Yeah but Krueger was the special teams coach prior to taking over as the head man so I'd maintain anything that's going on in that regard is under his directive.

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And Paajarvi is getting benched again. I can't stand this team sometimes. He's literally been one of our best players over the past several games.